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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435749">joy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fxxckthem/pseuds/fxxckthem'>fxxckthem</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ballet, Drabble, F/F, Gen, Hospitals, Minor Injuries, Self-Reflection</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:35:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,302</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435749</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fxxckthem/pseuds/fxxckthem</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It tastes like someone’s name on her lips, and Wendy tries hard to remember anyone who could possibly be named like this. What a ludicrous name, what a hopeless title. If your name’s Joy, does it mean that you are destined to feel joyful for the rest of your life?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Park Sooyoung | Joy/Son Seungwan | Wendy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>joy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I thought it would be safe for my first try to be a wenjoy gen ballet au<br/>anyway if someone is interested in it, (en)joy</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wendy is trying almost titanically hard to snap out of her nervousness in the last minutes before the show, which promises to be washed over with the pure noble whiteness. There is always something stereotypical about it: ballet, girly legs as thin as the matches, dusty talc and the brushstrokes of white all over the canvas, or, as an immutable Mr. Kim, who almost raised Wendy from the ashes two years ago, would say «la toile».</p><p>Wendy is only seventeen when she uproots herself from the steady cold ground. Wendy is only seventeen when it is the hospital room’s ceiling that is blindingly white, and the bust pale pink pointe shoes are nowhere to be seen. And finally, Wendy is only seventeen when the main battle of her life begins. Her most severe and bloody battle with herself.</p><p>It starts with the first sunlight through the glass of the scratched window. It starts with the tasteless breakfast and the nurse's compassionate smile. It starts with the pages of the “Robert des noms propres », fading in front of the Wendy’s tired eyes. It starts with the day when no one comes to the hospital with the bouquet of white lilies, as Wendy once imagines it while running through the moves of her rehearsal. </p><p>“I know it. I will fall one day. I will stumble, get stuck and I will fall. You need to fall at least once to remember how to stay still. And when my day of falling will come I want to fall with pride. I want to break my leg, or arm, or everything at once, I want to do it just for you to see how I scrape myself together in the aftermath. And definitely I will do it for the flowers”. </p><p>Mr. Kim steps in the second day and even stumbles near the door, scattering all his nervousness and probably even the feeling of guilt. Wendy has never seen him like that. Speechless, worried and pale as the walls that background him. </p><p>“How do you feel?”</p><p>“Please save that grievous look for my funeral”, almost pleads Wendy, lifting herself up with her blade bones against the wall. “I’ll be fine till the next show”.</p><p>“Doubt it”, and there is Mr. Kim that she knows well. With a short sigh he takes the little bulky metal chair and sits himself onto it. </p><p>Wendy can’t help but smile with an ounce of irony in her face. She mastered this skill of looking down at everyone and everything even when she feels miserable as ever herself. Wendy smiles and everything within her seems to get ready for making a war on the person who has been her only backbone since Wendy’s heady thirteen. Le tourbillon de jeunesse, as he said when they met for the first time. Mr. Kim was all of that – a father, a brother, a man with brilliantly mastered Chinese, French, English, German, Russian under his belt. And Wendy, who was and still remains a silly little girl — at least in the eyes of the beholder. </p><p>“Have you already done it?”, she struggles to ask. </p><p>“What?”, Mr. Kim sounds as if he already knows the answer. </p><p>“Replaced me”.</p><p>Wendy catches uncertainty and even fear in his eyes, as Mr. Kim tries to hide from the need to answer slightly, but too obviously. </p><p>“I doubt we’ll ever be able to replace you, dear”, it is clear as the morning sky behind the curtains that he forces himself to say this, but Wendy decides to stop being an executor as she is and simply changes her smirk into a warm-hearted smile, turning away towards the plain wall.  </p><p>Having a small talk with Mr. Kim, Wendy slowly — inch by inch — understands that the life which bypasses her is not even hers anymore. Wendy listens to the news about the brand new show programme, new girls on the plateau, and realizes that the only thing she can do now is observe. Plainly and calmly and without interruption. Wendy is weak now and true art hates weakness as much as Wendy hates herself. </p><p>When Mr. Kim nods her goodbye, Wendy feels obliged to seek out some help.</p><p>“Hey”, Wendy almost never calls him by name. “Can I ask you for something?” </p><p>Mr. Kim gives her an uncertain look second before stepping over the threshold. </p><p>“Sure”.</p><p>Wendy tries to smile instead of giving her natural sarcastic smirk, she tries to smile without irony and without sadness at the same time. She feels her own smile joyful on her lips, dry and clinged from medication. </p><p>“Could you please bring me some flowers?”</p><p>“Shouldn’t I save the flowers for your funeral?”, Mr. Kim jokes in his own manner, he is actually a kind man, but to Wendy he has always been somewhat stricter. Wendy is not used to his joking. Smiling. Acting like everything is alright. Because it is not. </p><p>“Got it. I’ll try to find the most beautiful bouquet", Mr. Kim leaves with the moaning squeak of the door, and the room again turns into this temple of doom, this gospel of tedious songs, this whiteness of toxic whitewash. Wendy, who doesn’t yet know the schedule of meals, nurses’ rounds of the rooms and medication, tries to predict it all herself. It brings her opulent joy. And again — joy, joy, joy. It tastes like someone’s name on her lips, and Wendy tries hard to remember anyone who could possibly be named like this. What a ludicrous name, what a hopeless title. If your name’s Joy, does it mean that you are destined to feel joyful for the rest of your life?</p><p>What an insufferable torture! </p><p>With the thought of it Wendy falls asleep, and it seems to her that she sleeps for the whole week, as through the ethereal dusty veil on her eyes she only feels those constant gradations of navy-blue, blue, white, orange and navy-blue again in the rectangle of the hospital’s window. </p><p>She doesn’t feel any joy. She doesn’t feel any relief. But when she finally opens her eyes from the long sleep, she sees a thing that hooks her immediately and keeps her awake. The girl sitting in the corner of the room, thin as a nascent cherry tree, pale as the whitewashed hospital walls, with the only garish spot on hers — an armful of wildflowers, multicoloured and, as Wendy secretly wished, with no leaves cut off. </p><p>Seeing Wendy awake she flinches, as if she encountered some kind of unexplored monster, and immediately straightens her back. Wendy catches her scared, innocent, not knowing what to do at all. But what do people actually do when they see such fascinating creatures as swans with their wings cut off? Broken. Ripped as an old newspaper. This girl surpasses all the expectations, because she smiles. Simply, relieved, approaching Wendy’s bed and holding out the bouquet. </p><p>“My name’s Joy”, the only thing she says. </p><p>“I’m the death of yours”, the only thing Wendy hears. </p><p>“It is a pity that you can’t come to our today’s rehearsal”, Joy says again and Wendy only wants to ask her to keep silent, but all her pleads get stuck somewhere in her dry throat. “Hope you’ll get better soon”. </p><p>And she gives Wendy this neophyte’s smile of hers, bright, girlish and naive, a smile that Wendy had herself some time ago, a time she wasn’t broken as she’s now. And Wendy can tell her about the most beautiful and painful things in the world, about peaks and valleys and, of course, about that pure noble whiteness of the walls and ceiling. Not here, not in the rehearsals room, but on the stage. Wendy can tell her about all of this, but it is better for Joy to discover it all herself. </p><p>So Wendy simply thanks her for the flowers.</p>
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